Avenger Assembled

Attack Focus (Melee) (2) Dodge Focus (1) Power Attack 3 ranks of Stealth [why? Because it's Avenger, that's why. :twisted: ] 4 ranks of Arcane Lore Languages (Vampiric) [the language vampires use for private communication, graffiti, secret messages, etc. Basing that a little bit on the Blade movies.) That looks like six! Done by Sandman XI

Best if we pick up Bel's story in North Bay. :twisted:

Dark Star's blast shattered the roof of the old church, sending huge chunks of stone and wooden beams crumbling down on the heroes inside. Pulled free from Avenger's embrace, Sister Sixtus looked up as as a huge beam came tumbling down from below and plowed into her midsection. She just had time to scream, the sheer force of impact driving a massive black bolt of necromantic energy from the staff straight up into the air. There was no question of restraint now; the whole roof caved in on the three heroes. Sister Sixtus disappeared as the floor gave way beneath her, woman and staff disappearing into the cavernous depths of the church basement as huge chunks of the defaced ceiling followed her town Scarab's quick, creative use of her psychic powers protected both herself and Avenger, the big beams and blocks bouncing off her shield even as the stone floor chipped and powdered beneath them. (Dark Star, naturally, was immune from worries about material objects passing right through him.) With a resounding crash, the last ceiling block fell to the ground, leaving the heroes in a huge cloud of dust and debris, the floor unstable beneath their feet from the fallen timbers. Avenger blinked a few times, Jack surprised and pleased to be saved. "Thank you, Scarab," He blinked against the dust, a tiny bit shell-shocked by the volume of devastation they'd all unleashed. "Good shot."

Though Avenger was naturally startled to suddenly be on the move, he hung on as they made their hasty flight to find the demon dogs. The sooner they got there, the sooner they could deal with the monsters below. "Drop me down there!" he called to Scarab as they approached, "I can roll with it!"

The waves of unimaginable necromantic energy tore their way through Scarab's psychic defenses and reached even to Dark Star's energetic body, pulling and tearing not at their bodies but at the stuff of their very souls. Despite the searing psychic pain ripping through her very essence, though, Scarab was able to observe something bizarre. As Avenger struggled to his feet and ripped off his mask, a black wave of energy clearly passed straight through his body and out the other side. It wasn't that he shrugged off the magical energy or avoided it; he didn't seem to notice the energies at all. Singed and in pain, Avenger certainly noticed the infuriated, very angry cultist he was grappling with. His efforts to wrest the staff from her failed as surely as his efforts to hurt her did, and the energies boiling in the air around him felt very, very bad indeed. "Scarab! Dark Star" Avenger shouted over the noise of Sixtus' screaming and threats. "The roof! Bring down the roof!"

OK, our current stats are Name - Initiative - Health - Hero Points - Location Avenger - 19 - Injured - 1 HP - Grappling with Sister Sixtus Dark Star - 19 - Injured and Stunned - 1 HP* - Inside w/ Sister Sixtus Scarab - 18 - Injured and Stunned - 2 HP - Inside w/ Sister Sixtus Sister Sixtus - 15 - Undamaged - NPC Villain - Inside w/ Heroes Belphegor - 10 - Fatigued** - 1 HP* - Outside w/ Cultists

"Standard," growled Avenger, who seemed unduly angry about something. "Need to find the demons. You, you know demons?" He paced the darkened alley as Scarab did her thing, his voice tight and growling as iron pulled along skin. "Made me angry," he admitted.

Avenger and Nightrival made their way down into a small utility corridor adjoining the main garage, a place that must have been small and cramped even in daylight but was downright disturbing at night. Loud music and chanting from the sealed-off garage permeated the hallway as readily as the stink of oil and blood, thrumming chants and music filling the whole building. There was no sign of any further guards; the only sounds coming through the papered-over windows of the adjoining garage. Avenger nodded at the utility door as he headed for a junction box himself. "Can get the door open. Nightvision?"

OK, having gotten a request about moving the thing on, we'll skip to the character development. ;)

The fight in the sewers was a fast, brutal one that took the three heroes through yard after yard of the darkened tunnels. Together the three were pitted against a terrible monster that used its home to terrible advantage against three less powerful opponents. Eventually, though, the deed was done and the monster left sprawling, bleeding, and unconscious at their feet after a long, brutal fight. Avenger had let Moira and Jack do the heavy hitting, recognizing quickly that they both hit harder than he did, concentrating on distracting the hideous beast while the others pounded it to a bloody pulp. Holding his arm, where he'd taken a slice to the humerus, Avenger asked, "Phone? Suggest we get up and call the League to deal with the thing." Certainly the thing still looked to need dealing with, breathing in a horrible, stentorian rhythm as blood leaked out of its mouth and nose.

I'm aware of the rules you cited; Avenger spent his HP so he could act before Belphegor's action on the next turn. I don't think Will saves came up in the previous conversation. I thought that seemed awfully favorable vis a vis the rules. OK, that's a DC 22 Ref save followed by DC 27 or DC 21. But it looks like that iddn't do much for either of them. Yay Dark Star!

Cy, you roll saves even if you can't pass the check to see how bad the damage is. Remember, if you nat-20, you only suffer a bruised. So go ahead and roll your Fort save.

H'okay, Belphegor hits Avenger. Avenger is blasted through the window and makes his Toughness save for the knockback damage. Avenger is, however, bruised and stunned. Avenger spends his two extra hero points on not being incinerated by a terrible Toughness roll and on shaking off his stun) The Jumped-Up Dabbler automatically passes Dark Star's attack, given her Impervious Toughness of 18. She actually failed her first Will save vs. Scarab by rolling awfully, so I spent one of her Luck points for a reroll. She then tried to hit Avenger with the staff and missed, then spent her second Luck point to surge for another attack. This attack is Strike 12 (Burst Area, Fort Save) "Greater Name of Death." I need a DC 22 Reflex save from Scarab and Dark Star for half-effect, and then a Fort save for either DC 27 (if you fail the reflex save) or DC 13 (if you pass the reflex save.) Also, I need a Notice check at this juncture from Scarab and Dark Star.

Avenger proceeded to burst into flames with a surprising alacrity, the sheer force of Belphegor's infernal blast hurling him off the back of the van and through the boarded-over stained glass window with an explosion of shattered glass and broken wood. The cultists gave a whoop of delight in reply, the cult leader clapping Belphegor manfully on the back. "Come, off to North Bay!" Leaving behind their fallen members, the cultists ran pell-mell for the van. Though Jack had hoped for a triumphant entry into the desecrated church upon defeating the cultists, instead he had to settle for flying through the window on fire, smashing into the far wall with a sickening crunch right at Sister Sixtus' feet. To say the least, it looked very, very bad indeed for the dark avenger of the night. The actions of the still-struggling heroes wiped the smirk off Sister Sixtus' face, for all that it got a little bigger when the flaming Avenger came crashing into the building. She staggered under the onslaught of Scarab's psychic beetles, and as Dark Star blasted her. But the two heroes could see that the damage was illusory; they were knocking her off her completely mortal feet, but not actually injuring her. "Stop it! I hate bugs!" She screamed and drove the staff into the ground, cracking the stone an inch from Avenger's head as waves of black arcane energy came boiling out of the staff. The energy was a cold, damnable thing; the most terrible vacumn of the void, the most monstrous of the energies of the Underworld, doing nothing to the walls around them but reaching hungrily for the souls of two of the heroes! For his part, Jack was a bit more concerned with the fact that he was on fire. He stopped dropped and rolled, something which turned out to work well enough for fires supernatural and regular alike, for all that his nice new cape was so much ash. Cursing violently, he tore off his ruined hockey mask, exposing the now-singed ski mask he wore underneath. He hurt; he'd taken glass shards in places he didn't want to think about, and parts of him were charred. But he was still in the fight, and he wasn't going down that easily. He staggered to his feet and tackled Sister Sixtus! He was no more able to injure her than anyone else, but he did manage to wrap his arms around her midsection as he struggled unsuccessfully for the staff, pinning her in place for a few critical moments.

I will reply as soon as Slamdance gets his post straightened out. :D

Ah, you got me again. That's two hero points for you, buddy. I suggest you spend one on Toughness and another on smacking it really hard this round. OK, we're at a new round and I'm still waiting for that Toughness save from Hellbound, whose turn it is.

Moira hit the thing square on, shattering the camera to a thousand fragments of metal and plastic while at the same time making black, decaying blood and filth splatter from the monster's head with a noisy splutch like the shattering of some horrible coconut.

OK, just to make things clear: Though they both noted the unnatural frightfulness of Sister Sixtus, Dark Star and Scarab both shrugged off her use of Fearsome Presence 13. It is now a new round, and I believe Dark Star is up.

"Red-black canines, man-sized. No particular human breed. Not mutants." Avenger started pacing, his movements an animated upsurge of energy. "Seen in the streets here, attacking bums on Woodlawn, killing stray dog on Aardman. Apparent underground travel. Apparently sentient. Need to find a sentient demon for interrogation; or demonic entity for tracking."

Thanks for the catch, Hellbound! You actually got me twice; that should be DC 3_1_ on the Toughness because it critted on a Damage 11 attack. As for the Will save...the Monster has Fearless.

I need a DC 23 Will save from Scarab. Sister Sixtus's laugh sounds like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYSGVvA4ojE She is also making that face.

The return of the heroes' powers, relief though it was, proved to have no effect against the churning cauldron of energy that was the mad cultist. Scarab hit cleanly with her telekinesis, actually pulling the staff straight out of the startled woman's hands. "Noo!" she cried, and at her cry black threads of energy came boiling out of the staff, wrapping themselves around her hand and ripping the staff straight out of Scarab's telekinetic grip. Sixtus gained the staff and laughed an evil laugh, only to scream in terror when Dark Star's perfectly-aimed blast struck her square in the face with an awesome eruption of gravitic energy. She went flying backwards, smashing into the rear of the church with a loud crunch. When she pushed herself away from the wall, though, it became obvious that the woman was completely uninjured. "That didn't hurt me," she said wonderingly as she looked down at the staff, a gleam of malicious madness in her eyes. "I'm...I'm invincible!" She laughed again, an evil laugh as the staff glowed malevolently, casting a diabolical glow of death and pain through the air. The two heroes could see the twisted darkness of the staff's magic interacting with the soul of Sister Sixtus, a legacy of death and pain and suffering and horror that stretched back uncountable thousands of milennia to the days when the masters of the staff raised whole armies of the restless dead for the amusement of their unspeakably vile masters. This is the weapon of a monster, in the hands of a madwoman; a mad monkey with the keys to a city bomb. --- "Yes, that would work very well with our plans," said the cult's overlord, shaking Belphegor's clawed hand almost daintily. Before he could move on, though, there came a startled squawk from the van as one of the cultists went flying overhead to smash against the far wall with a crunch. Groaning, the man fell to the alley as a black-clad figure leapt to the top of the nearby van. "No escape!" Avenger roared, his voice terrifying enough to strike fear into all but the hardiest of souls.

If no one objects, since everyone near Sixtus gets their powers back before her action, I'll just assume that everything goes down and then goes back up. ;)

Avenger gave the madman with the powerful magical arsenal his due, eying him carefully before he spoke. Truth be told, some of the man's words had truly hit home! He even turned his gaze on Tarantula, his blue eyes merciless eyes as he glared into her very soul. But Avenger had seen death and been taunted before. Suicides always did have the same look in their eye. He looked back at Ludd. "Suggest you surrender now. Unlikely I can subdue you without pain."

Avenger scheduled the meeting for a dark, deserted alley in the middle of the Fens, the rear of a closed porno theater too filthy and seedy even for the bums who live in the Fens. Though he took the time to greet Scarab and Slamdance both upon their arrival, he began speaking with little preamble once they were both there. "Tracking demonic activity. Demon dogs. Need help finding them," he admitted with an unusually deep growl in his voice. "Can't do it alone in time we have. Looking for evidence; demon informants."